If you have to generate xml in ruby I suggest take a look at builder gems. It has really little overhead to generate xml. Take a look to this example:
require 'Builder'
xm = Builder::XmlMarkup.new( :target => $stdout , :indent => 2 )
xm.instruct!
xm.people do | p |
p.person(:firstname => "brian", :lastname => "cardiff") do | a |
a.cdata!("it’s me!")
end
p.person(:firstname => "ary", :lastname => "borenszweig")
end
will print in stdout
<people>
<person lastname="cardiff" firstname="brian">
<!--[CDATA[it’s me!]]-->
</person>
<person lastname="borenszweig" firstname="ary" />
</people>
the target parameter could be a string or file (or anything with << method).